Indigo Sea
by Axantur
Summary: Adventures aren't always what they seem; it's all fun and games … until someone gets hurt. The cover image is "Anchor" by the fantastically talented Gretel Lusky at gretlusky deviantart com. The characters of Ariel, Flounder and Eric are all the property of the Walt Disney Company.


**Author's Note:**

 _This vignette is unique in that a "certain young lady" had the opportunity to participate in its creation_ _... by playing Ariel!_

 _Now, for a trifle of a song, courtesy of Axantur, and definitely intended to make a "certain young lady" blush a little:_

 _"Happy birthday dear Blue,_

 _Happy birthday to you,_

 _Happy birthday little mermaid,_

 _…_ _Who loves Doctor Who."_

 _ ***** Happy birthday TardisBlueMermaid! *****_

 ** _Publication Date:_** _Thursday_ _, December 3rd, 2015 (which may or may not be ... the magical day)_

* * *

 **Indigo Sea**

 **Chapter 1 – "A Dream in Blue"**

 **~~~ Saturday, the 16th of November, 1805 AD ~~~**

 **~ 11:30 p.m. ~**

 **Christiansborg Palace – Christiansted, Sankt Croix**

 _"It is customary to list indigo as a color lying between blue and violet, but it has never seemed to me that indigo is worth the dignity of being considered a separate color. To my eyes it seems merely deep blue." – Isaac Asimov_

Much is spoken by Men of the sea and its many moods, and of the many causes thereof; the endless churning of the waves driven by the restless winds, the inexorable passing of the Sun seemingly drawn along its long arc by the Earth's turning, the daily mounting of the clouds laden with their cooling vapors. On a day bright or dull, all would inform the mood of the sea, all would leave their indelible imprint upon its waves, upon its brightness, upon its hue.

On a bright but not too cloudy day, the sea would assume a panoply of colors; most of these species of blues, of greens, of grays, the exact hues depending upon the height of the sun, the depth of the water, and the color of the sky above. The reflections of the drifting clouds might be seen, tall and strewn out by the high airs like tufts of white cotton fluff, near enough to one another to be seen in the cresting waves, but far enough apart so that large, unbroken patches of blue remained still open amidst the sky, allowing the sun the freedom to shine forth.

Looking down into the sea far from land one would find its radiance reflected from the depths, giving the ocean a rare pellucid quality, transforming clear water into something close akin to liquid sapphire. The sea would flash beneath the waves, its limpid volume sparkling, burning with resplendent fires of silver and blue, fires of pure light. Few among the folk of Men, however, have seen such seas, have been so far from land; and far fewer have seen these things from within the great depths themselves, far beneath the waves.

To say that afternoon in the mid of November that the waters of Prince Frederick's Bay were a mere blue though, would be to have missed the point; for they were a blue in transition, in transition to something grayer and more uncertain. That very morning after the dawn they had been a green, then had become a dark turquoise, varying thereafter in shade steadily onward through azure and finally into a deep sapphire as the sun at last peaked overhead. As the wind finally stirred once again, blowing ever more briskly inward from the sea, the waves began to mount up and atop them whitecaps formed. The sea grew more turbulent, more forceful, more confused. This little change portended something greater. The weather itself was shifting and taking the color of the sea itself with it, green to blue, blue to gray. So would have thought those Men who both dwelt and labored above the waves.

To a child of the sea, however, nestled safely within the waters of her birth, a much different sight would have greeted her eyes during the calm of that late morning and early afternoon. In such calms the sea seemed to stand still, and save for the gentle lapping of waves upon the distant strand, might lay as flat and clear as glass. In such calms the turbid contents of the waters would drift down and away either to the seafloor or upon the current leaving the seas behind exceptionally clean and clear. The sun's rays, falling at just the right angle at a certain depth would reveal the waters in the deepest and most profound of their many hues, a blue beyond blue, a midnight blue, an indigo blue, a blue … fading to black.

* * *

As the mid-day passed the Sun continued its inexorable march along its appointed path, and owing to the time of year, found its zenith at a lower altitude than was usual. The winter solstice was approaching, still a month away. The sun shone no less radiantly however, its golden rays falling in a bright cascade down into the azure sea below, piercing its surface, suffusing the waters below in a hazy, liquid glory, suffusing its depths with a silver and blue luminance born from its golden beginnings. As they fell into the deeps of the abyss below, those beams' golden and silver hues grew ever more laden with blueness, darkening, coldening in aspect, as though the very sea itself were consuming them, taking from them the substance of their precious warmth. It was as though the sea itself drew sustenance from the Sun above.

For it did.

A hundred feet below the wave-swept surface, a young mermaid played among the vibrant corals and creatures of the reef, swimming briskly along its eastern face in pursuit of her friend, a young but plump fish whose exact species humans would have been hard pressed to identify. As far as Ariel knew, he was unique, bright yellow with the most brilliant blue stripes she had ever seen, and a dear friend whom she had known since they were both guppies. Indeed, he was her closest friend, her confidant, and had on more than one occasion been her salvation in her many adventures.

 _"Oh…!" Where did he go?"_ the little mermaid asked herself, peering into the intense blue below.

The little fish had just then disappeared in their game of hide and seek, but that was exactly the point of the game, wasn't it? With his unusual and striking coloration, Flounder should have been child's play to find, and Ariel was hardly a child. Ariel's problem was the fish's smaller size, always and by far his greatest advantage, that and the fact that he could dart out of sight the moment the princess's eyes strayed from him for even a moment. To say the little fish was agile was an understatement.

As she dove deeper, sea fans spread out along the sheer eastern face of the reef, painting it in splotches of reds, browns, and greens. Gnarled living corals outstretched like twenty-fingered green hands reached out to her. Sea grasses, polyps and flowering creatures green, yellow and blue undulating in the currents brushed against her shoulder as she descended.

A sea turtle mottled dark and pale green pulled away from the reef where it had been feeding, looking at her with a smiling look in its eyes as it went. The young mermaid smiled sweetly and blushed, returning the affectionate gesture before venturing further. Anemones and tube worms drew themselves inward as she slipped down the coral face, crabs scuttled beneath her seeking shelter in the shadowy nooks and crannies below. Above and in the distance a myriad of iridescent and brightly colored fish sparkled silver and yellow in the shimmering sunbeams; swimming, breaking, and turning in flowing streams, fluttering waves, and twisting balls.

The beauty of it, of this place, the Reef, wasn't lost upon the young princess; it was the very reason that she so loved to come here to explore and play, though she had only recently been allowed to venture so far alone, as long as she was accompanied.

Fortunately she had Flounder. Not only was he her best friend, but he went everywhere with her, which was normally enough for her father. This was important because if she didn't have him, she would have to have a warrior escort her, and that was something she didn't want. Fortunately, her father didn't know that sometimes she and Flounder went just a little beyond the bounds, but only a little, and only when the sunken ships were just too amazing not to visit; and she was always careful when she did so … always.

Well … usually.

As she approached the bottom, she could see bedrock below, rock that she knew from past explorations concealed many tunnels, black tubes great and small, through which seething molten rock had once long ago gnawed its way to the sea, or so her father and Attina had told her. They were empty now, haunting reminders of the violent birth of the surrounding sea floor now long passed, inundated by the sea, and leading to who knows where.

Actually … Ariel knew.

Well, some of them. She knew where some of them led … but only some.

Only a few to be more precise.

And when one actually thought about it, she had really only explored one.

But she had a good idea where several others led; and where they did, she was going to find out!

These nooks, crannies, and tubes were Flounder's favorite places to hide along the Reef, especially since he could enter and pass through most whereas his young mermaid companion could not. Though just a slip of a mermaid, Ariel was hardly a guppy any longer and thus growing too big to be able to easily follow her quick little friend as she once had been able.

As she swam deeper the light grew ever dimmer about her. A slight chill came upon her. She felt it in her tail fins first, a slight discomfort and numbness, then it invaded first her arms, then her torso, and finally she began to feel it in her long green tail. Wrapping her arms about herself, she shivered.

 _"Brrr. It's … it's so cold down here."_ she thought to herself, as she looked back up to the surface. The sunlight, once warm and golden had become now a much dimmer silvery blue. Indeed, it was much colder here than in the palace or even her grotto, many leagues away; but she expected those places to always be warm and pleasant, the palace especially. This place had its own character and rules, rules she would have to accommodate.

Looking down as she continued, the young mermaid could begin to discern a darkness, a spot of sorts amid the ever deepening blue, a void. As she had thought, it was a lava tube, or at least the entrance to one, right where she had last seen her little friend. It wasn't one of the two she had actually explored.

 _"That's strange. I don't remember that one. It's so wide, how could I have missed it before?"_

She stopped, pulling back slightly, her arms still wrapped about herself against the threatening chill. The coldness seemed to be welling upward from this opening and those around it. That was even stranger. So often there was warm water rising from such tubes, heated by some source far below the sea bottom. Not so it seemed in this case.

Swimming closer, and taking care to remain quiet, the little mermaid peeked around the limb of the hole beneath her, looking for the familiar blue and yellow stripes of her little friend, her eyes wide with fresh expectation and excitement. She really wanted to _win_ this time, and he had already found her twice. She had to find him this time to catch up. Flounder was good at hide and seek, and he sure didn't seem afraid of hiding in dark places. Sometimes Ariel wondered if he was really the guppy she thought he was.

Then it occurred to the young princess that all of her attention was focused downward; a quick alarm shot through her slender frame. She looked upward and around her, as far as her deep blue eyes could see. Were there any sharks? Was there anything else she didn't want to be … near?

Forgetting that one was never truly alone in the depths, especially when one actually was by oneself; that could lead to bad experiences. The princess bit her lower lip, looking about again; the cold in her tailfins was beginning to hurt a little. She needed to get swimming again, to get her blood flowing.

Cold like this was something she had normally encountered only at much greater depths, or in the distant northern dominions. She didn't much care for it, the cold, which was one of the reasons she had been so happy when her father had decided to keep his family here all those years ago.

Still, visits to the northern palace and reaches were sometimes required, though dangerous as the vast oceanic Wilderness had to be traversed to get there. The journey was also long, tiring, and boring, given that the ocean floor lay far below, shrouded in darkness where the weight of the sea was so great that it would crush anyone before they could ever descend to it.

 _"So … odd."_

After a moment her pounding heart began to still, her breathing calmed. She felt the sea flowing into and out of her lungs, passing through her fine inner gills, into and out of her slender being. If she saw a shark, she could probably outswim it, not with speed, but through agility and quick thinking. But that _only_ worked on the seafloor or around places like the reef where there were obstacles about which to swim, to confuse and lose the monsters. Caught unaware in the open ocean above she would die, just as she would if one caught and trapped her where she now was.

The girl swallowed uncomfortably, wishing now that Flounder were where she could see him. Sometimes Ariel didn't like being alone, though she wouldn't admit it. She hated feeling like a guppy even though she knew she was still rather slender and small, even for a mermaid; but after all, she was only fifteen.

In the distance she saw the long undulating shape of an eel, gliding otherwise smoothly through the water about half of the way to the surface. Ariel was fairly confident that she could outswim it in the event it turned to her, but usually eels wouldn't approach merfolk. Seeing only distant shadows, the same fish and other creatures she had already seen, Ariel returned her attention to the ancient vent beneath her, peering into it and down as deeply as her eyes would see.

 _"It's so dark. I wonder what's down there."_ Ariel thought to herself, peering again over the limb of the tube with wide eyes as dark and brilliant blue as the sea that now surrounded her. Above and about her head, her fabulously long red hair swirled and danced like an unruly cloud, its tresses streaming upward now as the cold upwelling current caught and lifted it away from her face. At this depth though, even that crimson hue took on a bluish tone, becoming one more akin to a Tyrian purple.

Nothing but darkness greeted her, darkness and the ever present mysterious cold upwelling of the sea itself, but that … seemed to be changing. Slowly, the silvery blue light of the sun behind her was climbing over the edge of the vent, reaching into and creeping down its open volume, revealing as it did a myriad of encrusting sea creatures, exposing hints of subtle reds, yellows, browns, and even blues down most of the length of the vent. After another minute of this ongoing exposure, the young mermaid could see so far down that she finally espied where the tube turned to her left and plunged under the face of the reef.

She studied the long tunnel for a moment, examining the growths, the many colors, considering its width, how much space she would have to swim and maneuver if she entered it and followed it into its depths.

 _"Well, it looks like I could fit and even turn around if I needed to."_ she thought to herself, trying to muster just a little more courage to continue on. Being able to reverse one's orientation was always an important consideration to a mermaid whose tail worked best to propel her in one direction only. Moreover, relying on arms and hands was always a bad strategy when swimming, at least for a mermaid.

The darkness scared her a bit, but if it got dark along the way again, she could just feel her way along. Moreover, she was sure that she had seen Flounder swim straight into this area. Her little friend just had to be down in there, and she wasn't going to let him win so easily this time; after all she wasn't a _guppy_ anymore and afraid of the dark; not much anyway. Besides, she could always turn around and flit right back out as swiftly as she had entered, right?

A small, adventuresome grin began to thread its way across the girl's face, at first in the twinkling of her eyes but soon spreading therefrom until she was smiling sweetly with only the slightest hint of uncertainty remaining in her eyes. Ariel was ready to see exactly what was down there.

"Alright, I'm going _in_!"

With a moment's further hesitation, Ariel swam around the limb of the vent and slipped in.

As she had expected, she could still see, though her own shadow obstructed much of the sunlight from behind her. She swam along, taking some care as she did so because of the walls of the tube with their many spiny and probably jagged encrustations. She was also wary of what other living things might be down here as well as. After passing along a few of her own body lengths, the growths and tubeworms seemed to dissipate, leaving only smooth rock walls, walls that bore the strange rings and patterns left by the surging molten rock which had long ago eaten its way through this tunnel and exploded out into the sea above.

She wondered why there was no longer any rock within it, why it had left an empty void behind, how that could have happened. There were so many things she didn't know or understand, but they were things that fascinated her, and she really did want to know more. She wondered if any of her people even knew.

 _"Maybe humans would know."_ she thought, thinking back to the many human books she had found that from their amazing illustrations and words dealt with aspects of the natural world.

The light about her grew ever dimmer as she approached the curving turn she had seen above, her own shadow becoming most of the problem. The tube grew narrower, until it was no more than thrice the width of her shoulders. She was beginning to feel uncomfortable, penned in if something … happened.

Worse yet, the cold was growing even more intense as she went on. She could feel the ocean pressing in more heavily upon her, not that it was painful like the greater depths were, but if she swam too much deeper it might start to get uncomfortable.

Being a creature of the sea, a mermaid always knew exactly how deep she was by how heavily the sea pressed in upon her. There were limits to how deep even the strongest merman or mermaid could swim, and how much cold they could endure. True, the merfolk of the northern seas were able to tolerate those colder waters, and even seemed to find comfort in them, but for that very reason they also disliked visiting the Warm Sea, and the seat of her father's power.

One's body required time to adjust to such changes in temperature, however, time provided by the long journey across the Wilderness, always undertaken in the warmer layers of the surface waters. It was a journey Ariel undertook with mixed feelings, as she never seemed to fully adjust to the cold, and was actually quite the guppy about it; as her sisters never failed to remind her.

Her mind returning to the dark turn in the tunnel before her, she swam downward, her arms wrapped tightly around herself.

 _"Flounder?"_ she whispered somewhat hesitantly. A little crab scurried backwards across the turn of the vent beneath her, its claws held up at her defensively. _"Why would it do that?"_ she wondered, after all she hadn't done anything to threaten it save being there. Reaching the downward bend, she set both hands on its near side and peeked around it. Almost total darkness greeted her. The young mermaid swallowed uncomfortably. _"If Flounder came this way, it must be safe, that unless something happ …"_

Ariel stopped, frozen at the thought. What if something _had_ happened to her little friend? She felt her heart starting to beat a little harder, her breath coming and going a little more swiftly. _"What if he's hurt? Or what if something att…"_ The girl stifled her own thought as her jaw began to quiver. She had a bad feeling now, but if he was down there and in trouble then she was going to get him out of it. The young princess couldn't bear the thought of her friend hurt because of the game she had insisted upon playing at the Reef rather than safely back at home. And she couldn't even think of the other possibilities.

She slipped around the bend and into the darkened waters beyond. Immediately she found that she could see almost nothing, and was forced to rely upon her hands to guide her, feeling at the strangely smooth and sinuous tunnel walls as she went for sharp edges and other dangers unseen. _"Fl … flounder?"_ she asked quietly of the dark, but the dark remained silent before her. She could see nothing now, not even the hints of silhouettes and shapes that she had begun with, but she thought she could hear something ahead, something akin to a rumbling flow.

She was losing track of how far she had swum, many, many lengths she guessed, but now she thought the tunnel had mostly leveled off, for it did not feel to be gaining as much depth as she swam, thank the Powers. Now it was more blind faith in her own intuition that was driving her; for there was not even the slightest hint that her friend had in fact come this way, and she was beginning to doubt herself. Also, she thought the tunnel might be narrowing as well, not a good sign; and the noise was growing louder.

Then ahead she saw a light, a faint silvery-blue like sunlight at depth, but one strange that it seemed to dance and waver before her. The girl smiled and swam forward. The light began to grow brighter as she went, exactly what she had wanted to see! The girl surged forward with a powerful flick of her tail, pulling herself along with her arms and hands, arms and hands she couldn't wrap around herself because she was too busy using them to prevent hitting her head or cutting herself against the occasional jagged and uneven outcroppings in the otherwise smooth tunnel.

The noise was much louder now, just ahead of her. She could see the distant light distorted in the roiling waters, waters whose source she couldn't discern, but through which she must pass to continue onward. Looking at the boiling light ahead of her, she swallowed hesitantly, already able to feel the tremendous force by which the frigid waters were surging upward into the tunnel, apparently from unseen openings in the rock below.

She swam back slightly, now wary of what stood before her. Could Flounder have gotten through _that_? She couldn't believe it, not Flounder; but if he had and if he were _hurt_ ...

Without another moment's thought Ariel darted through the tumult. She immediately regretted her choice.

In a mere length she realized the force of the surging frigid waters was far greater than she had expected, terrifyingly intense. Like a kelp doll the vicious currents seized, bent, and twisted her slender form about itself, driving her upward. She screamed, half out of terror, half out of pain. In a moment she had lost all control, all sense of her bearings in the chaotic, twisting gyre.

There was no turning back. Roiling darks and lights assaulted her eyes through the frigid waters. Over and around she spun upward into the dark reaches of the tunnel, unable even to swim back down into the assailing waters. Then she smashed into something, with her right arm, closely followed by her upper torso, head and face, causing her to cry out again.

What the object was she couldn't see, but it was very hard, cold like frigid stone. It had to be some sort of rock. Fortunately its surface was relatively smooth. She could hear nothing now save the deafening roar of the waters passing about her. Moaning, she closed her eyes as she cradled her right arm with her left. It ached where her elbow had smashed into the rock face, but she was lucky that it had struck first before either her face or head, catching both instead on its slender but soft extent before they connected with the much less forgiving stone.

Realizing that she was pinned against the rock by the unrelenting upsurge, Ariel began to try to extricate herself. Still holding her injured right arm, the young mermaid rolled over on the rock face, unable to see much of anything and growing increasingly numb in the blast of the upwelling frigid water. She could no longer feel her tailfins, nor could she feel her fingers. She had to get away from this place, she had to or else she wasn't going to make it, and then there would be no one to help Flounder.

The surging waters carried with them occasional bits of sand or other material; tiny missiles that, in striking her face or bare flesh, felt like little sharp teeth biting into her. With a soft cry and powerful kick of her tail she tried to launch herself against the current and towards the wildly gyrating light, only to be forced back and smashed once again against the stone face, her back and then the back of her head this time. For a few seconds she lay there stunned, unable to move. It wasn't working.

 _"I have to get out of this place!"_

Rolling back onto her chest, the young mermaid pushed herself outward with sore and aching arms. Her right elbow threatened to collapse as she pressed herself outward, it hurt so much. With a another kick of her tail she drove herself forward across the current, unable to feel most of her body now, and found herself forced back against the rock face, catching herself with her hands and arms this time; but she had moved sideways. It was working!

This time owing to both the pain and exhaustion of her arms, Ariel found it much harder to press her head and torso outward, though she thought that the upsurge from behind her had lessened slightly. Closing her eyes, she tried again, pressing outward as hard as she could, kicked her tail … and broke free.

The violent upsurge dissipated around her, though having turned now along the length of the tunnel, those same waters were pushing her forward, carrying her forward towards the light. This was fortunate, because she could no longer feel her lower tail, her arms would barely move, even her face felt numb. Carried along by the cold current, the little mermaid spun and drifted helplessly along the length of the tunnel.

Pulling her arms into herself once again, Ariel yearned to be warm again. As much as the light would allow, she watched for signs of her friend, but could hardly believe he might have made his way through what she had just encountered. He was too small a fish to have passed that violent upsurge unscathed.

 _"What if … what if he's back there, caught up against the rocks like I was?"_ she wondered helplessly as she tumbled along. Even if he were, there was nothing she could do now. It was all she could do to flick and bend her numb tail to keep herself from smashing into the walls of the tunnel as she drifted and rolled along. The young mermaid hoped that she was wrong about her best friend getting caught in the rocks. Surely if he had been back there he would have called out to her, wouldn't he, especially when she had cried out herself?

Gradually the speed and turbulence of the current began to slacken. Ahead of her, the light had grown stronger now, a blue tinged with silver so bright that her eyes were beginning to hurt just looking at it, so deprived of light had they been. Once again, growths of various kinds protruded from the tunnel walls ahead, their bare silhouettes all that the young mermaid could clearly discern. She took care to shield her head as best she could with her unresponsive hands and arms, to gather in her hair in so that it wouldn't catch and become entangled in the corals. If that were to happen she might never escape. The light was growing closer.

Around her the tunnel opened up and Ariel was thrown outward by the current into a great, open space.

The little mermaid found herself drifting away from the side of a huge bowl-like opening looking up to the surface and the top of the reef far above. Warm waters enveloped her nearly frozen body. Warmth, such a wonderful feeling to know once again.

Looking upward, she saw the sunlight flooding down through the waters above, spraying out in shimmering hints of color that danced against the walls of the depression. The water here was very blue, deeply blue, a blue deeper and darker than the little mermaid thought she had ever before seen, and one that became almost black as she followed it with her eyes into the depths below.

So dark it was even above her that she almost missed the three sharp silhouettes that swam there. Almost, or at least she would have had they not blotted out the sun so. Slowly, back and forth they swung their tails through the waters, as the young princess caught her breath and froze.

Sharks.

They were big ones, probably older, the kind that were smart _and_ dangerous because they would be hard to either outswim and outsmart. The type that looked at you, and met your eyes with their own deadly, knowing gazes before they tore you in half.

The little mermaid swallowed. Even as she watched almost frozen in place, one of the shapes turned sharply and angled down toward her. Once again Ariel felt her heart begin to beat faster as she just drifted there transfixed; and her heart was already pounding. The second and then third shape followed, turning downward and swimming toward her. Briefly she saw sharp dorsal fins and vertical tails silhouetted against the bluish-white sun above. They even were closer than she had thought.

Regaining her senses, Ariel gave a powerful kick of her tail righting and propelling herself back towards the wall of the bowl, to the opening from whence she had flown out into it. In three strokes she was back at its frigid mouth and dove back in, turning swiftly as she wrapped her arms around herself once again, missing the brief respite of warmth.

She wondered where Flounder was, if he had come this way after all. If he had, she thought, he was probably somewhere nearby, and probably scared. Like all fish, Flounder was terrified of sharks. So was she. She knew what the ravenous monsters could easily do to even a large powerful fish, or a little mermaid.

If they came after her she could swim back farther into the tunnel, fighting the current. There wouldn't be enough room for them where it closed in. One of the few advantages of being such a small and slender mermaid was that she could still get into a lot of close spaces others could not. It was an ability helpful in exploring new places or sunken ships.

At least she hoped there wouldn't be enough room for them if it came to that.

She really didn't like the thought of going back into the cold, being still half frozen after all. So she watched, her eyes not leaving the mouth of the tunnel, her body ready to dart away from it and back into the tunnel's depths the moment something came around the limb. Her breathing stilled, her heart pounded harder deep within her breast. She tried to think of Flounder, but was finding it … rather hard to.

A few breathless moments passed, ten, maybe twenty heartbeats as she held her arms wrapped tightly around herself. Too afraid to close her eyes, she blinked only when she had to. A shadow edged about the upper rim of the tunnel mouth, gradually darkening and taking the sunlight with it as it crossed in front of her. Darkness swallowed the stone walls around her as she unconsciously backed away with delicate, silent undulations of her tail fin. She felt a presence. Had it seen her?

She actually heard her heart pounding within her chest now but she couldn't see anything. Had it entered the tunnel? Was it there, coming for her now? Had it seen her? It must have, otherwise it wouldn't have turned down towards her in the first place. The little mermaid imagined its open mouth, row after row of merciless, serrated teeth coming closer in the dark through which she couldn't see. She wanted to snap her tail and flee, but she knew that Flounder must still be out there, alone, with three sharks. He needed her. She needed him too.

But then the light began to return. The mermaid caught a glimpse of a dorsal fin turning away from her, a sleek, deadly shape gliding slowly away. Another followed it. Realizing that she had been so paralyzed with fear that she had stopped breathing, the young princess exhaled quietly and drew in a deep breath of fresh, cold seawater, feeling it wash coolly and refreshingly across her gills, relaxing as it washed into and settled deep within her lungs. She took the time to once again breathe; to breathe slowly, deliberately; to let her heart calm, her muscles relax; but she was cold again.

Ariel hesitated. She listened and thought before swimming forward again, wondering how close the sharks might have remained to the tunnel mouth. The cold waters were numbing her fins and hands once again and she knew that she couldn't stay where she was for much longer. Slowly, she slipped out of the darkness, careful not to let the currents move her faster than she was ready to drift.

The shadows fell away from her face and drifting hair first, revealing eyes that sparked blue in the already bluish-white light falling from above. Pulling her eyes out above the rim of the entrance, she looked outward and about as her hair surged unexpectedly outward behind upon current. The mermaid quickly gathered it in with her left hand, losing her grip with her right as she did so.

Once again she was drifting free of the tunnel mouth and had to spin and kick with her tail to return to her hiding place, her heart surging again, so loud that she could hear it herself. Could _they_? She hoped that she had not been seen, not been … _heard_. Ariel took care, forcing herself now to be as quiet as she possibly could.

Once again, the young princess looked outward, both up and down. Above her swam the three sharks, now angling up and away from her. She let loose a watery sigh of relief, her right hand covering her pounding heart as she closed her eyes, trying to calm herself, wishing that Eric were there.

Considering how scared _she_ was, Flounder was probably even more scared and almost certainly hiding nearby if he had come this way. She began to look then at the closer areas that seemed, to her at least, good places for concealment, seeking the fish's characteristic vertical stripes that appeared yellow and black at such depths as these. Actually, only a hint of yellow at these depths, she reminded herself. As she took in the distant walls with her eyes, she looked for places to hide, to conceal herself against the rock and coral walls with their many growths, crags, and outcroppings.

To her relief, there seemed to be many. In fact, the far side of the coral bowl seemed to be pocked with splotches of shadow and darkness within the already dim depths. More tunnels perhaps? Could he be in one of those? If so, though, this posed yet another dilemma. Which one?

 _"Oh Flounder, where are you?"_ she worried silently.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** _Now, a little explanation. This chapter is the first of two in a set of vignettes which fulfill a very specific function. That function is for my readers to guess, as I shall not tell._

 _(Okay, who am I kidding? If "certain individuals" get me yapping in a series of PMs I'll be hard pressed not to spill some beans, as you all should know by now.)_

 _To date, all of my stories are intended to fit together, sometimes seamlessly and clearly, sometimes obliquely or like a puzzle._

 _There remain inconsistencies in the posted version of the first Chapter of "Night Comes to Ariel's Isle," though those who have read both "Sael" and that work may see some of the alignment between the two emerging in "Sael." I'll eventually revise that first chapter to bring it into line with the events of "Sael." Also, there's more to come in "Shako" once "Sael" is complete, before I move on to "Night."_

 _Vignette series like "Missing Moments,"Atalantë," and "Indigo Sea" supplement the main stories, and I think make fascinating and entertaining stories in their own right, but would otherwise interrupt the tone and pacing of Sael._

* * *

 _ **Acknowledgments and Credits:**_ _(Something I intend to go back and add to all of my stories and chapters)_

 _ **Cover Art:** I would like to thank Gretel Lusky for allowing me to use "Anchor" as the cover art for this story. _

_The link is_ _gretlusky deviantart com/art/Anchor-432989375_

 _I found this painting on her page back in April and loved its power and haunting beauty. It captures almost perfectly moments not just in this first chapter or "vignette" of "Indigo Sea," but also one that is still forthcoming in the second and last._

 _ **Creative Contributions:** I would like to thank the birthday girl and fledgling role-player TardisBlueMermaid ("Blue"!), for being "Ariel" for part of this as I was writing it!_


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